60 Songs That Explain the '90s - Dave Matthews Band—“Crash Into Me”

Episode Date: April 28, 2021

Rob explores Dave Matthews Band’s “Crash Into Me” by discussing the band’s immense musical prowess and artistry contrasted with their fandom’s reputation. This episode was originally produced as a Music and Talk show available exclusively on Spotify. Find the full song on Spotify or wherever you get your music. Host: Rob Harvilla Guest: Yasi Salek Producers: Isaac Lee and Justin Sayles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to a music and talk episode where full songs and talk segments play together only on Spotify. Best of all, you can create your own music and talk show for free with Anchor Spotify's podcasting platform. Get started at anchor.fm-fm-f-M-C-H-O-R-F-M-U-S-I-S-I-S-M-U-S-I-S-E-L-K. A lot of spelling there, but just do it. This is forward of me. and borderline inappropriate.

I don't know you at all, probably. But are you this sort of person who likes music playing when you make out with someone, et cetera? I can't hear your answer, of course. It's a rhetorical question and inappropriate. Nonetheless, do you desire a soundtrack for moments of desire? Is music crucial to setting the mood and so forth? Or like me, do you find setting the mood to be a little corny

and overdetermined? You're like, excuse me, baby, and you reach over to the stereo and go and DeAngelo starts playing, or John Coltrane, or Sarah McLaughlin, or Pearl Jam's 10, or Ayers, Moon Safari, or Bikini Kill, or the Chemical Brothers, or Slayer, or Eminem. Don't do that with Eminem ever. By the way, unless you want somebody to write an autobiographical, viral short story about what a creep you are. Anyway, don't answer any of that. I don't know you, probably. I don't mean to ask you rhetorically about make-out music. Forget it. Forget I said the words make out music at all. But I will say this. The single greatest email I've ever received.

And my whole entire life was sent to me in college, to I assume my hot mail address, in the late 90s by my good buddy Brian, who was informing our small group of dudes of a recent successful evening he'd spent with a young lady. It's creepy when I say it out loud. Yeah, slightly creepy. Like three out of ten creepy. You have to convey this to your friends somehow, right? No details. in this email. No penthouse forum pruriance. All he said was, I had a couple Zimas, and she came over, and obviously I had some smooth shit on in the background to set the mood. That's all Brian said. Dear listener, I've taken the liberty of retaining this phrase, smooth shit on in the background for the rest of my life, because I love it. So this phrase, and also because hand a god, per the email, this was the smooth shit on in the background.

If you could only see the way. If you could only see by the Los Angeles pop rock band Tonic. Not the first single off Tonics' 1996 debut album Lemon Parade, but Tonics' most enduring hit. Yes, smooth shit indeed. L.A., I could have sworn they were from like Pennsylvania. No offense, but I wouldn't bet money on Tonic coming up again in this venue. And yet, if you could only see as a song with deep personal meeting to me, albeit vicariously on account of Brian and his Zimas. I bring all this up because of a quote I stumbled across recently from Greta Gerwig, beloved actress and filmmaker Greta Gerwig, who in 2017 was doing a director's Q&A after a screening of her solo directorial debut

Lady Bird at the Toronto Film Festival. And she said, and she was not talking about Tonic here, quote, I feel like it's an incredibly romantic song, and I always wanted to make out to that song, and I never did. To my mind, this is the highest possible compliment you can pay to a song, to imagine yourself smooching to it, but to lament that you never have. This combination of desire and thwarted desire. It's quite poignant. And so this was the smooth shit

that Greta Gerwig had never had on in the background. My name is Rob Harvilla. This is 60 songs that explain the 90s, and this week we're talking Crash Into Me by Dave Matthews Band. Not the first single off their 1996 album Crash, but D&B's most enduring hit, yes, I fear I may struggle to convey to you, dear listener, the towering scale of the commercial success of Dave Matthews band in the mid-90s and beyond as recording artists and more importantly as touring artists.

Crash was D&B's second studio album after 1994's seven times platinum under the table and dreaming. Crash peaked at number two on the Billboard album chart. Couldn't quite beat out Hootie and the Blowfish's Fairweather Johnson. Not the good hooty album. Tough break. Anyway, the next seven DMB studio albums would hit number one on the Billboard album chart. This is an active streak. Their last number one album was Come Tomorrow in 2018.

And this isn't even the aspect of their success that's hardest to convey. In 2009, Polestar magazine, which covers the concert industry, declared Dave Matthews band its top act of the decade. DMB were the highest grossing touring artist in North America from 2000 to 2009. The band grossed $429 million in those 10 years, closing it

on half a billion dollars they made touring. Plus they sold a few t-shirts. Commercial success on this scale effectively made DMB's fan base its own subculture, its own ecosystem, complete with its own stereotype, frat houses,

Backward baseball caps, hacky sacks, cargo shorts, Trustafarians, Red Solo Cups, that one shop on every college campus that sells bongs, that one irritating guy at every keg party who pulls out an acoustic guitar. Jimmy Buffett for Polly Sye majors, you know the stereotype. It's a boring stereotype. A cliche ripe to be exploded. A band ripe for critical redemption for whatever that's worth.

So, Lady Bird, fantastic movie, 2017, written and directed by Greta Gereira. Wig, starring Sersha Ronan as Lady Bird, a moody teenager in Sacramento, California, which he thinks is an uncool place in 2002 and 2003, framed as an uncool time. Crash into Me is heard twice in Lady Bird, the first time it's a joke. Lady Bird makes an unpleasant discovery about her boyfriend at a bathroom stall. She and her best friend tear ass out of the bathroom, smash cut to Lady Bird and her best friend crying in a car with their seats reclined while singing along to crash into me.

You can take Crash Into Me deployed in that moment as an ironic joke, another chance to laugh at how cheesy and uncool the song allegedly is. You can picture Will Ferrell in a slapstick Will Farrell movie, fake sobbing to crash into me. But Lady Bird's love for this song, Lady Bird, the movie, and the character, is meant sincerely and literally. The climax of this movie, the moment when she comes of age and accepts herself and truly becomes herself, is when she stands up to her snooty-ass prom date, who was announced that he hates Crash Into Me. And she admits that she loves Crash Into Me.

She does this by saying, I love it, verbatim. I fucking hate this song. I love it. I actually want to go to prom. This very explicit shout-out in one of the best and coolest movies of 2017 triggered a wave of Dave Matthews Band, Our Cool Again, type content, which peaked for me when Greta Gerwig herself revealed the letter

she'd written to Dave Matthews. He's addressed as Mr. Dave Matthews, asking him for the rights to use Crash Into Me in her movie. I love your music. You were the first CDs I bought, et cetera. And then she writes, The song Crash Into Me was and is the most romantic song ever. It is sincere and loving and tender and epic.

She explains the two scenes the song would appear in, and then she says, It is impossible for me to imagine this movie without it. I had a weirdly intense emotional reaction to rereading Greta Gerwig's letter to Dave Matthews recently because she underlined the words, the most romantic song ever. Those words aren't hyperlinked. They're underlined for emphasis. I see underlined words now and I just automatically think hyperlinked. You can click on those words and it takes you to some other place on the internet that backs up those words. It's confirmation. It's proof of the rightness of your opinion. It's safety and numbers. just underlining something is stating your opinion as strongly as possible. You're taking a stand alone. Greta Gerwig underlining those words. I just found that to be enormously endearing. Dave Matthews band rose to power in the underlying era and remains powerful here in the

hyperlink era. But even today, they make a strong case for the underlying era. It is impossible for me to imagine 1994 without them. So here we have this singing voice of David John Matthews and all its twee, growly, octave-leap quirky, but also quite soothing glory. Ants Marching was the first song on Remember Two Things, the independent and mostly live album Dave Matthews band released in 1993. David John Matthews was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1967. He left South Africa in the mid-80s to avoid military conscription in the

apartheid era South African government. He ends up tending bar in Charlottesville, Virginia, home, of course, to the University of Virginia, where he forms what would become Dave Matthews band in the early 90s. The classic DMB lineup, which perhaps needs no introduction, Dave Matthews on acoustic guitar and lead vocals, Carter Beaufort on drums, Leroy Moore on sax and clarinet and such, Boyd Tinsley on violin, and young Stefan Lassard on base. Not to belabor this, but this arc on its own is staggering when you think about it.

He left apartheid era South Africa and wound up in Charlottesville, Virginia, which in 2017 was the site of a white supremacist rally that became one of the uglier moments in recent American history. And there, in Charlottesville, in 1991, he formed the most outlandishly successful

multiracial rock band of his generation, at least. You make nearly half a billion dollars touring in one decade. You're in the all-time conversation. However pervasive, the Dave Matthews band fan cliche might be, whoever you picture when you picture a prototypical DMB fan, love him or hate him, thrilled to his voice or cringe at his voice, this guy was the change he wanted to see in the world. And it was all there, musically and philosophically, before the big, bad music industry took over. D&B gets signed to a major label, RCA, and they hook up with a hot-shot producer, Steve Lillywhite, who worked on the first few U-2 records and a ton of R.E. 80s pop stuff. And Dave Matthews' band's official debut album, Under the Table and Dreaming, comes out in 1994

with a re-recorded but basically identical version of Ants Marching, which becomes one of the band's breakout hits. The major label, the Hot Shot producer, the MTV videos, are very helpful these things. but the song was already there, the sound was already there, the band was already there, the lifestyle was already there. And so Dave Matthew's band explodes, and Dave Matthews band's CDs

become comically ubiquitous. Side note, if you were paging through somebody's CD book in the mid-90s, one of those giant zip-up case logic deals with sleeves for four CDs per page, if this person owned Remember Two Things, that's how you knew they were truly about. about that Dave Matthews band life.

And just about that life in general. Side note to the side note, paging through somebody's CD book in the mid-90s was the single most intimate activity you can engage in with another human being. It was like drinking beer out of someone else's mouth. Paging through somebody's CD book was like 75% of the way to just making out with them.

You might as well make out with them at that point. No modern equivalent. What is evident from under the table in dreaming is that the member of Dave Matthews band as individuals are phenomenal musicians. What amateur guitarist among us has not stumbled through

that spidery ass opening riff to satellite? Who among us has not been stuck at a party talking to a drummer raving on and on about Carter Beauford, who's one of these guys whose drum kit looks like a hoarder's episode. Just but they're phenomenal musicians who don't sound like five soloing individuals

constantly trying to remind you how phenomenal they are. They have capital C chemistry. They have chemistry underlined. You wouldn't call it restraint, necessarily, but there is a cohesion. There is a higher purpose. As jam bands go, Dave Matthews band

are especially committed to structure, to pop song, structure. Within the 90s, jam band, boom. Their friends, blues traveler, widespread panic, proud Canadians of the tragically hip, Moe, lowercase M-O-E, period, Mo, never do that in print.

it's pretentious, et cetera. Dave Matthews band stood apart, rose above, rose far above, thanks to their relative mastery of pop song structure, their acumen with hooks, with legit radio hits. Fish, of course,

created their own ecosystem, their own lifestyle, but they don't have a crash into me. It'd be a little weird if Fish did, honestly. There is a darkness to Dave Matthews from the very beginning. There is turmoil.

There's tragedy. When Dave was 10 years old, his father died of lung cancer. In 1994, Dave's older sister, Anne, was killed by her husband in a murder suicide. Under the Table and Dreaming is dedicated to her. Some version of this turmoil does manifest occasionally in Dave Matthews band's music, in his voice. Listening to Under the Table and Dreaming again recently, I was struck, I was alarmed, really, by a song called Rime and Reason. Not a B-side, not a deep cut. This is the fourth song on the album that introduced them to most of America, and it gets fiery. It seems to be about drug addiction. Dave appears to have very strong

feelings about drug addiction. Carter Beaufort, though, ladies and gentlemen, a drummer's drummer, but somehow a singer's drummer, too. If Carter Beaufort ever joined Tool, you wouldn't notice the difference. I don't think the other guy's in Toole would notice. But the stormier, growlier side of Dave Matthews, this is not a well-known aspect of Dave Matthews to those who don't know him well. Less you know about him, the more you think of old Dave as just the quirky, carefree, jittery, yelping, goofy jam band guy. He's not so much dancing as mildly convulsing. His feet are turning inward. His arms and legs as individual limbs don't seem to have the cohesion that his band does.

And often, on Crash the album, he appears to just be singing whatever happens to pop into his head. But there is also a... lustiness to Dave Matthews from pretty much the beginning under the table and dreaming also includes a song called Lover Lay Down. Kiss me, won't you

kiss me now? And sleep by wood inside your mouth. Totally. Crash the album as a song called Say Goodbye, which is about being snowed in, alone with a platonic

lady friend, and things get less Splatonic, just for one night. That never works, obviously, but every generation gets the version of Bob Seeger's We've Got Tonight that it deserves. Carter Beauford, ladies and gentlemen, the next Dave Matthews band album, 1998, before these crowded streets will include a top 40 single called Crush. Who among us has not befouled a suburban guitar center by flubbing the baseline to Crush for 45 minutes? Lovely song, don't think too hard about Crush. please.

Lovely lady, let me drink you. Drop no, I promise you. But Crash Into Me stands apart in terms of amorousness, and in terms of the wisdom of not thinking too hard about it.

Partly this sensuality is purely musical. I spent a pretty ugly afternoon in college with my acoustic guitar, trying to play the Crash Into Me riff with my buddy Jeff on bass. eish. This was in my college coffee shop, open mic night phase. You don't want any part of it. Trust me, I didn't want any part of it. But this riff, this song just sounds like two teenagers in a closet trying to climb one another. But then there is the troubling matter of what exactly David John Matthews just said. Did he really just...

He didn't say that. Yeah, he really said that. Okay. Is there, is there, is there a word not in German, in French? Is there a word in French? For when somebody says something so explicit that your brain refuses to process how explicit it was, and you just assume as a defense mechanism

that what you just heard has some other more benign and metaphorical meaning? Do you know what I'm saying? I actually don't want to talk about this line. Never mind. Hark up your skirt a little more and show the world.

I don't want to talk about that line either. So here's the thing. Have you ever seen the Saturday Night Live skit? It was Will Ferrell, actually. It's Will Ferrell playing Neil Diamond, appearing on VH1 Storytellers. VH1 Storytellers where rock stars play stripped-down versions

of their biggest hits in front of a small, intimate live audience, and also they tell the stories behind the songs. Explain the meaning of the songs. And the premise of this skit is that Will Farrell as Neil Diamond is high on pills and every story he tells about a classic Neil Diamond song is wildly

inappropriate. Pretty simple premise. This is how that skit ends. This next song I wrote after I killed a drifter to get an erection. Forever in Blue Jeans. Where you go and do the best you...

Now, the real Dave Matthews appeared on the real VH1 storytellers in 19, with fellow phenomenal guitarist and frequent collaborator Tim Reynolds. An illuminating episode of VH1 Storytellers, let's say. For example, turns out the song Jimmy Thing is not about a condom. Jimmy Hendrix, obviously. Just be grateful he didn't call it Jimmy Thang.

Sublime would have called that song, Jimmy Thang. But so crashing to me as it appeared, as it was discussed, on VH1 Storytellers. Pretty extraordinary moment here. Here is the real Dave Matthews, explaining the impetus behind the most romantic song ever. This song is about the worship of women, but this is a little bit of a crazy man.

This is a bit of a crazy man. He's the kind of person that you'd call the police on. Some guy sort of peering in keenly, like his neighbor's or something. A young girl who moved in or something staring. And she's calling up. He's calling the police. He's got to get down here.

He's looking right at the woman. He was looking. He saw him. I didn't have a shirt. He was looking at me. I don't know. He was what he was doing. It's right there.

In conclusion, Dave Matthew says, So I wrote this song about it, rather than actually appearing in the window for fear of being arrested. During this explanation, it cuts away to a smiling young female fan, and you watch her face fall in real time. as he is providing this explanation. Specifically, as he is imitating a terrified woman calling the cops on a panting stalker, sincere and loving and tender and epic. This does not ruin Crashin' to me or Dave Matthews or the 90s. This is just to say, maybe don't watch VH1 storytellers,

or maybe more to the point, don't appear on VH1 storytellers. Give it some thought. In any event, here's the line from Crashin to Me. We maybe should have paid more attention. to at the time. Every generation gets the every breath you take it deserves. But crashing to me has endured. Dave Matthews band itself clearly has endured, though not without its share of grief and trauma. Leroy Moore, the saxophonist and co-founder, died in 2008 of complications from an ATV accident. Boyd Tensley, the violinist, was sued for sexual harassment by a bandmate in another project in 2018. Around that time, Boyd took a leave of absence from DMB that looks to be permanent. Dave Matthews himself addressed the Boyd situation somewhat

obliquely in a lengthy and quite striking Q&A for Vulture with the great journalist and interviewer David Marquesi also in 2018. I say striking because Dave Matthews even now is still conflicted about his success, the towering, almost embarrassing scale of his success. Quote, am I challenging myself? Am I eating my own tail? Am I just feeding off the thing that allowed me to be doing so extraordinarily well, that's always the tension. Maybe you want to be a painter, but to make money you do commercial art. Maybe you want to be a landscape photographer, but for a career you take wedding photos. I'll write a funky song about lust and sex, and it makes you want to dance. I feel like that's okay, but I also have to write songs about the dilemmas of being alive.

He talks about drinking about his fraught history with alcohol. He talks about Lady Bird and how flattering Lady Bird was, in part because it may be explained his appeal better than he can. He talks about his fan base, the enthusiasm, the exuberance of his fan base, and how the raucous, raging kegger vibe of your average Dave Matthews band concert is not necessarily the way he prefers to experience or appreciate music. Quote, in general, there's a connect and a disconnect. People are coming to see the Dave Matthews band and dance and sing, and that's a good thing for there to be in the world. But when I listen to music, I sort of want everyone to be quiet.

So respect is being paid at our shows, but maybe not exactly the same way I would pay it. So maybe Dave Matthews would appreciate this. Let me tell you about the first time I heard crash into me. Relax. This is not a penthouse forum story. It's not even a Zima's and Tonic story. I'm 18 years old. I'm in high school. I'm in a car with a couple girls and at least one other guy. There is nothing amorous transpiring between anybody in the car, to my knowledge. We're just driving. Dollars to donuts, we were either driving to or from a Denny's or both. And somebody in the car says, you got to listen to this song. I love this song. And she puts on Crashin to Me. And four or five teenagers sit in a moving car in silence, in deep contemplation for five minutes and 16 seconds for the duration of Crashin

to Me. Don't think too hard about that line either. So this sounds like It sounds mundane, I realize, and I'd love to tell you that the first time I heard crash into me, I was climbing Mount Kilimanjaro or something. But I hope you understand that this moment felt at the time that momentous. Four or five teenagers in a car keeping their mouths shut for five minutes and 16 seconds is, to my mind, an accomplishment on par with climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, just the focus, the reverence in that car, to really listen to a song. to listen hard, and to know that everyone around you is listening hard too.

That's its own kind of intimacy. That's the highest respect a teenager can pay. To pay that respect together in an enclosed space, that's 80% of the way to making out with someone. I'll never forget it. I suspect I'll never forget the vast majority of what I know about crash into me and what crash into me made me feel. Even the stuff I wish I could forget.

My guest today is Yossi Salick. a writer and editor and host of the phenomenal Spotify podcast, Band Splane, and also she is a Dave Matthews band Enthusiast. Fanatic, what is your preferred terminology? I like enthusiast. Enthusiast. I think that makes me sound elevated. Okay. Well, that's the goal here.

In terms of establishing yourself as a Dave Matthews band enthusiast, my understanding is you have a framed portrait of Dave Matthews on your desk at home at all times. Tell me about this portrait and what you get from this portrait. Well, I did order a gorgeous, vintage longslave Dave Matthews Band T-shirt from the Application D-pop. And the seller, I think he was in like Ohio, just enclosed of his own volition this drawing that he did of David Matthews, which is really beautiful, honestly, in with my package. And I was just so touched. And then my producer, Dylan, who had to hear about the drawing every recording and every meeting and see it, she bought me a frame for it for Christmas. And so now it's framed. I see.

It gives me a lot of joy. It's like a talisman. Right, right. Is it a close likeness, would you say, to the real Dave Matthews? I think it's like unmistakably Dave Matthews, but some people are like, that just looks like a guy. Right. Well, Dave Matthews, to some extent, looks like a guy. That's sort of his every man, you know, superpower.

Yeah, I mean, all white guys kind of look like a guy. That's like the whole thing, right? That is, yeah, that is sort of our thing now that I think about it. I asked you what you wanted to talk about today, and you said, I want to talk about being 14. So let's talk about you being 14. What is that like for you, 14? Okay. Thanks so much for asking.

I was extremely unattractive. I had like super frizzy hair and one eyebrow and acne. And it was just like not a cute scene. This ties in, okay, it's related. When I was 14 is when I discovered David Matthews and his band. Because as you're aware, that's the year, 1996 to age me, that's the year that Crash came out. And Crash into me was an unavoidable song. And let me just tell you, as a tender 14-year-old who, you know, my whole experience of romance and love was basically 100% yearning.

Like that's what it was. That's like what I had experience besides like drinking gold schlager at a party and having like a sloppy kiss with some like gross other 14-year-old. And this song is just like the song of year. You know, like, and to me, it just imprinted right on my sad, ugly, 14-year-old self. That's very sweet and very sad all at once. So that's the very first Dave Matthews band song you heard or just the first one that sort of struck you, I guess. I think it probably was the first one I ever heard. I didn't like seek out Dave Matthews band, you know?

Sure. He found me. I was going to ask you if a real Dave Matthews band enthusiast almost looks down on this song because it's one of his poppier, you know, like radio hits. Like, is that sort of a thing? It's like not a cool song to love of his. I think that's probably true. I have to like come clean that I'm probably not, you know,

one of the elite Dave Matthews band fanatics that you're referring to. Sure. On band Splane when we did Dave Matthews band, that is a shameless plug. It comes out every Thursday, only on Spotify. Good work. Thank you. We had Grayson Haver-Kurran, who I think is a pretty diehard Dave Matthews band aficionado, and he did say that it's like, that's like the sellout song, you know?

They like the live albums, I think, pretty exclusively. Right, right. You know what I mean? They're like, they won't even listen to album cuts. Wow. Well, I was going to ask you, like, when do you cross the? that line to fanatic? Like, what is the threshold you have to reach to call yourself, like, a true Dave Matthews band fanatic?

It's really hard for me to, like, I think this is probably why I was able to, like, love Dave Matthews band with such reckless abandon in my teen years. A, it was private because I was, like, a punk, and, like, that's so embarrassing. Like, I can't tell anybody. I was, like, listening to Blink 182 and, like, gutter mouth. And, like, I could be, like, also on this mix. I have included number 41 by Dave Matthews band. But also because I lived in Singapore for most of high school.

And I was kind of removed from Dave Matthews band fans, like what they would be like. I went on one date with like a very Gen X man. And when I told him I liked Dave Matthews band, he was like horrified. And I was like, what? It's good. And he was like, I guess it's just I associate it with the people who like, who liked Dave Matthews van when I was in college, and they were all, like, frat guys and stuff.

And, like, I didn't have any exposure to those people, so I wasn't able to, like, associate the fandom with the music, which maybe made it easier for me to, like, embrace it wholly. Did you have to struggle with that when you sort of realized what the stereotype was, or were you already so far gone that, like, it doesn't really bother you, that there's this image people have in their heads of the stereotypical Dave Matthews fan? I mean, by that time, I'm, just, I was so, how do I say? I'm so confident in my own taste that nothing can

hold me down. I am cringe, but I am free, Rob. Well said. That was the whole point. There was nothing coming after that. Right. Is there a through line between Blink 182, Guttermouth, and Dave Matthews band? Is there, is there any common denominator you can point to there? Yeah, I think they all actually make tender love songs. Okay, guttermouth. I guess I'm not a gutter mouth fanatic, but I'd have to go back and look for their personal crashing to me. At the very least, no effects made tender love songs. Yeah, that's true. That's one of the kind of songs, No Effects Made. But yeah, I get you. So you're 14 when you first hear Crashin' Me. How old are you when you sort of realize it Crash Into Me is actually like a stalker-ish song, according to Dave Matthews himself? Is that something you have to struggle with that? Discovery. Okay, no. Then let me tell you why. Okay. First of all, all love songs are creepy. If you actually listen to the lyrics, they're all like creepy and sort of like seek help, you know,

pener of this song. Like, this is not healthy. And yeah, this one might be about a stalker. But I still hold the theory that things are only as creepy as how little regard you have for the person expressing the creepiness. Like, so for example, like, if you thought that guy was hot who was, like, stalking you, is it even stalking or is it just flattering? Right. Am I going to get canceled for saying this? I'm not on this show, no, no.

But do you hear me? Like, it's, like, it's creepy when someone you don't like says it, but it's not creepy when someone you do like says it. Then it's romantic. I understand, yes. Are you a jam band person in general? Like, where are you on? Hard pass.

Okay, so what's what is it about Dave Matthews band that silos them away from jam bands in general? I think it's kind of like a misconception that they're a jam band. Like, I think they play their songs and then they just have sort of like longer interpretations of them. But I don't think they change every time. It's not like they're like freeballing out there, like fish or whatever, where they're like, all right, let's see what this crazy bass can do. I don't know. I don't listen to fish.

No, that's exactly what fish sounds like. Let's see what this crazy base can do. 35 minutes later, you know. Right? It can do a lot, as it turns out. And people like that. They sure do. They definitely do.

Have you seen Dave Matthews band live? Are you sitting down? I am. I've never seen Dave Matthews band life. I had a feeling. I had a feeling. And it's one of the, like, greatest. sadnesses of my life. So if you're listening red light management, I would love to attend one or all

of the Dave Matthews band shows on this upcoming tour. Another shameless plug. Is there any, is there some subconscious part of you that doesn't want to see them live for any reason? Do you know what I'm saying? Like it would change the experience to be around like all those stereotypical Dave Matthews band fans or have you just not gotten around to it. No, I've really just not gotten around to it. I mean, I think those people are cool. Like, here's the thing. Like, who cares anymore? Have you been to Coachella? That's like 50 times more embarrassing of a crowd than I think you would ever find in a Dave Matthews band show and probably a bit of overlap. Right. Probably a lot. But I'd rather hang out with like, you know, the guys in

like the button downs from old Navy and their like sports hat and cargo shorts and like those rainbow flip-flops, like doing a bunch of mushrooms, then I would with, like, the person that paid $6,000 to go to the VIP section of Coachella for the weekend when they could have, like, gone to Europe for that same money. Right. In the Indian headdress and so forth. Yeah. All of it. I see your point. So, yeah, see, you have a show called Bansplaine. I guess comes on, plays you a bunch of songs by an artist to sell you on that artist. I have appeared on your show. I hope that appearance never airs. I hope all physical copies of that show are thrown into the sea. But I wanted to know what

songs you would play for a Dave Matthews band novice or really a Dave Matthews band skeptic. Like, what's the ideal starter pack to sell you on this band? I did take some notes prior to our recording. You mentioned number 41, which is a jam. Number 41 is a fucking solid banger, like an undisputed, it slaps like if you have no heart you will be unmoved by this song but otherwise it's gorgeous it's beautiful there's emotion

there's texture actually there's a lot of texture in all day Matthews band songs I think that's because they have like seven different types of instruments in the band what else what I think is slept on I think that whole album

busted stuff is kind of slept on that's right it's called busted stuff There's like a song on there called Big Eyed Fish. That's really good. Where are you going? If you want to ease someone into Dave Matthews band, you could play like satellite, which I think is easily digestible. I agree.

I love Two-Step is maybe the best Dave Matthews band song. That is my favorite. Oh, you have a favorite? I do. And it's Two-Step. It is for serious. It's two-step. I can't really say why, but it just, it makes me happy.

That's why. Okay, I was going to say, I'll tell you why. Here's the thing about David Matthews. David Matthews, by all accounts, is just a wonderful person. He is a good person who is humble, who is not preoccupied with being cool, simply does not care that he's a punchline. Like, he donates massive amounts of money, all of that. But also, he's experienced a lot of trauma in his life. Like a lot of people close to him have died.

His father, yeah. His father, his best friend. friend, I think one of his siblings and their partner. Older sister. You know, and he just has this attitude about life that I came to embrace more holy as an adult. Again, I am cringe, but I am free. That's like, just like be in the moment, babe, you know? Like, just like life is short. Let's be ourselves and be happy because tomorrow we'll go back to being friends. That's actually a more creepy song, but it works. Right.

But eat drink and be merry for tomorrow will die. Yes, exactly. Thank you. You're welcome. Why won't you run into the rain and let tears splash all over you? Do you know what I'm saying? It's a valid point. Absolutely.

Absolutely a good question. What did you make of the Lady Bird thing? Like this idea that a cool Oscar movie comes along, uses crash into me really effectively, and that therefore makes Dave Matthews ban like cool or redeemed or something. Were you skeptical of like that reevaluation? I think that's like the wrong narrative. I think what actually probably happened is that people were able to like admit again.

Right. Because like nobody didn't listen to that song or hear it, you know? And like they probably much like me, you know, kept it private. And then once like Greta Gerwig, God bless her heart, through that song into that movie, people were like, yeah, you know what? That is a good song. Is the music video unhinged? Yes. But the song is great.

Yeah, it's a little bit. There's a lot going on. The bass player's suit is disconcertingly large, and he's, like, in a river or something. The bass player, low-key kind of hot and also always, like, was the punk of the band who loved, like, Nirvana, just so you know. My favorite part is violinist Boyd Tinsley in a skirt made of violins. Right, yeah. That's what he's dressed in. Very intense.

aesthetic. Would love to meet the costume designer of this music video. I don't know if you actually want to do that, but I know what you mean. The lineup has changed. Like Leroy Moore passed away. Boyd Tinsley was fired, basically. But the center has basically held for the day Matthews Band. They had a number one album three years ago.

Are you surprised at the longevity of this band? Are you extremely not surprised? No. I mean, look, and this is no knock on Dave Matthews band. I think it should be allowed to say about a beloved band that you still only listen to their first three albums or whatever, but you wish them the best in all their future endeavors. But I think, like, you know, if you were a band that was big, that big at any point in the 90s, you will forever be able to put out albums and be successful. You're not going to be critically acclaimed. But you have a diehard fan base of like boomers and Gen X people who have money to buy albums and go to your shows.

Right. We can put out albums as an excuse to tour for sure. They're in that zone and they'll remain in that zone. Come Tomorrow is not a bad album, though, actually. Yeah. No, I listened to it at the time and I don't remember. I'm in the I wish them well in their future endeavors category for sure. Before these crowded streets, I think might be my favorite album overall.

Overall. Yeah, I don't know. I got shrill there. I'm so surprised. That album is kind of weird. It is. I think I'm drawn. That's such a music critic thing of you to be like, oh, I like the departure from

their normal. Right. There was a point out I don't remember when where he read Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States and was like talking in interviews about how mind-blowing that book was. Like, that's the most collegiate moment in Dave Matthews band history for me. Like, there's, that's the ultimate white 90s college student move right there, is to be radicalized by Howard Zinn. So shout out to Dave Matthews.

A wonderful man. Is there anything else you would like to add in praise of Dave Matthews, Yassie? I think this has been a pretty thorough celebration of him, but I want to make sure we get to say everything that you'd like to say. Now I feel put on the spot. Do you think he's going to listen to this? Yes, he is definitely going to listen to this. He assured me that he will listen to this, David. Okay, I just want to tell him, thank you so much for making this beautiful music that is imbued with such heartfelt emotion

and that I owe him a debt because I love him and his band. That's lovely. Was there a moment where you sort of came out to your friends as a Dave Matthews fan? You said that's the sort of thing you had to hide. Was there like a cinematic event when you were no longer hiding? By the time I went to college, we used to do a lot of ecstasy. Sorry, Dad, earmuffs. And I was in charge.

Goldflogger to ecstasy. That's the arc. That's the Dave Matthews Band Ark. The Dave Matthews Band Ark. And I was in charge of making the mixed CDs for these ecstasy evenings. And I would always put at least two to three Dave Matthews band songs on here. And they were very appreciated. It's a great music to hear.

Like, you want to hear a little lover laydown while you're just, like, rolling? It's gorgeous. It is gorgeous. That is a powerful image. And now I'll scream it to anyone that will listen how much I love Dave Matthews, as you know. I know. Wow. I was going to ask what songs specifically, but lover lay down is really, having never rolled on ecstasy at all, let alone to Dave Matthews,

I'm going to take your word for it, but I can't imagine that. We're very different types of people, you and I, Rob. I suppose that we are. And like if we were in a band together, you know how? In the band, there's always like the guy that's like writing the songs, but they're writing them about the other person who actually like lived the fun and cool life. Right, right. That's us.

Okay. So you're the fun and cool life and I'm writing the songs about your life. Yeah, that sounds fire and ice, you know, and in between is lukewarm water. Thank you very much. You're very welcome. Thanks very much to our guests this week, Yossi Salick. Thanks as always to our producers, Isaac Lee and Justin Sales. And thanks very much to you for listening.

And now, without further ado, here is Dave Matthews Band with Crash Into Me. We'll see you next week.